'Budget can improve India's infrastructure'

'Budget can improve India's infrastructure'

Prasanna Zore in Mumbai

Though he hails from Rajasthan in northern India Kamal Virani is reluctant to disclose his identity. He prefers introducing himself as "a young chartered accountant from India".

According to him budgets can play a very important role in bettering India's infrastructure. As a taxpayer who happens to be an accountant kamal wants "direct taxes to be somewhat liberalised so that the burden on their pockets is reduced".

He thinks that the country's financial policy makers should not be held responsible for the rising price indices. "It's because of the global economic environment," he says referring to the economic turoil the world is going through post Lehman Brothers collapse in the last quarter of 2008.

However, he wants our finance minister to do something to solve the problems of the poor and the farmers who commit suicides because of the heavy debt burden. However, he does not expect only the finance minister or the Union Budget to solve their problems. "It's the responsibility of each and every politician to rein in inflation," he says.

His expectation: "Why consider a person a senior citizen only after she or he crosses 65? Don't people retire only after 58?" He would want the age criteria for tagging senior citizens as such be brought down from 65 to 58.